We should be able to find this research on stroke in 5 minutes. We could if we had a great stroke association with a complete database of all stroke research. Then we could inform our doctors and therapists EXACTLY what needs to be done to get to 100% recovery.
Brain-zapping gadgets promise to make you a better you — smarter, stronger, even happier - THYNC and Muse
As he closed his eyes, the device zapped him with low-voltage electrical currents. Within minutes, Tyler said, he was feeling serene enough to face the crowds once again.
This is no science fiction. The Harvard-trained neurobiologist was taking advantage of one of his own inventions, a device called Thync, which promises to help users activate their body's “natural state of energy or calm” — for a retail price of a mere $199.
Americans’ obsession with wellness is fueling a new category of consumer electronics, one that goes far beyond the ubiquitous Fitbits and UP activity wristbands that only passively monitor users' physical activity. The latest wearable tech, to put it in the simplest terms, is about hacking your brain.
These gadgets claim to be able to make you have more willpower, think more creatively and even jump higher. One day, their makers say, the technology may even succeed in delivering on the holy grail of emotions: happiness.
There’s real, peer-reviewed science behind the theory driving these devices. It involves stimulating key regions of the brain — with currents or magnetic fields — to affect emotions and physical well-being. It isn’t too different from how electroshock therapy works to counter certain mental illnesses and how deep-brain stimulation smooths motion disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Indeed, recent studies have looked at the technique as a possible treatment for stroke, autism and anorexia.
Lots of people and companies are making investments, too, from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to large pharmaceutical companies and even the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And according to the start-ups selling the products, their technology appears to be safe and effective based on certain, very controlled tests.
But more rigorous research is ongoing, and some of the early results have generated controversy because of how the studies were conducted. Moreover, the gadgets themselves haven’t been independently validated, and, for competitive reasons, many of the entrepreneurs making them have revealed little information about their development and testing. The companies claim the stimuli they utilize are so weak that the products shouldn't be considered medical devices and subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. To date, the agency hasn't intervened.
All this has unnerved many neuroscience experts, who worry about putting something that tinkers with the brain in the hands of naive consumer masses.
Kareem Zaghloul, who runs one of the brain labs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said that even if the devices work as advertised — which is a big if, he stressed — there are also concerns about how they account for individual variability in brain structure and whether enhancing one area of the brain could negatively affect another. No one knows the long-term consequences.
“When you’re dealing with the brain and electrical simulation, there are always possible dangers. We worry about this even with our own work. We think the chances are quite low, but it’s still a potential problem,” Zaghloul said.
Other scientists have issued stronger warnings. Writing in the Journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, one group of researchers argued that “‘non-invasive’ brain stimulation” may sound benign, but it comes with risks as severe as when a body is opened up in surgery. And Marom Bikson, a professor of biomedical engineering at City College of New York, emphasized that the devices are "not play things" and said consumers who use them too much could essentially risk an overdose.
Additional issues,
although remote, include possible addiction or sabotage by hackers that
could change a code to stimulate undesirable characteristics such as
anxiety, fear and aggression.
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